In the search for new compounds, especially for the pharmaceutical industry, combinatorial methods demand creation and testing of a significant number of compounds.
Using modern techniques and tools, only small aliquots of chemicals are required for testing, therefore small storage containers, such as compound storage vials, can be used to collect and store the chemical compounds. The vials are normally kept in a tray specially designed for the storage and transportation of the vials. The trays come in varying sizes and hold a varying quantity of vials. A typical tray may hold an array, 8×12, of 96 vials. The vial size will depend on the required aliquot. Once all of the vials in the tray are filled with chemicals, they may be stacked one upon another and placed in a storage area. Dozens of the 96 vial trays may be used for collecting the chemical compounds from a single experiment and may need to be kept for future evaluations. Trays that contain hundreds of vials which hold only microliters of solution are also available as well as trays that hold only a few vials but contain several milliliters.
For storage and transportation of the trays, and to protect the chemical compounds from contamination or spillage, the vials are typically capped. The caps are generally made from a non-reactive, compliant plastic material. The caps are pressed into the top of the vial or in some cases, onto and over the top of the vial. The caps preferably form an air tight seal that protects the contents of the vials from the external environment and eliminates loss of the chemical compound. The caps also allow the trays to be stacked without compromising the chemical compounds within the vials.
In order to sample the chemical compound in each of the vials or in one vial, the caps must first be removed, the contents tested, and the caps replaced each time. There are tools commercially available, such as REMP AG's 'Automated Capper Decapper 96 (ACD96), (Ch-3672 Oberdiessbach, Switzerland), that can de-cap and re-cap 96 tubes at one time. Once the tubes are de-capped, the tray with the tubes is removed from the tool so the required analysis may be performed. Once the analysis is complete, the tray is returned to the de-capping/re-capping tool so the tubes can be re-capped. To avoid cross contamination of the sample from placing a cap on the wrong tube, either new caps must be used in the recapping process or the de-capping/re-capping tool must sit idle and not be used so that the caps that were removed are held in the system in the exact position so that they will be replaced on the same container that they were removed from. This is not practical due to the expense of new caps every time the samples are tested or tying up of the de-capping/re-capping tool while the analysis is performed.
Another method of sealing vials is to use a cap mat which is a solid plastic mat with cap protrusions for 96 vials formed as part of the mat on one side. The mat is placed on top of the 96 vials, placed into a sealer, and all 96 vials are sealed at one time and are connected by the mat. This technology is offered by REMP AG as well as Matrix Technologies Corporation (Hudson, N.H.) using their Matrix SuperSealer® Automatic Cap Mat Sealer. A disadvantage of cap mats is that one or more selected vials may not be removed from the holder after they have been sealed with the cap mat.
A bottle cap remover has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,778,740 (Tye). Here, a cap placed on the top, external surface of a bottle and is removed by a hook-shaped member. This tool requires that the cap fit over the outside of the upper edge of the bottle. Another de-capping tool described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,477,919 (Thomas et al.) removes caps from bottles or vials. Here, too, the cap must fit over the outside of the upper edge of the bottle. Both of these patents describe a tool only for the removal of a cap, and not for the replacement or storage of a cap.
In addition to the storage of chemical compounds, other fields of research have needs for storage of small amounts of materials that are well-suited for the types of storage that are described above. For example, biology and medical researchers often have the need for long term storage of small volumes of biological materials such as bacterial, fungal, viral, ELISA or PCR samples, to name a few. Many research institutions amass large libraries of samples and controls and make such materials available to other researchers. Forensic laboratories, and particularly law enforcement agencies, have the need to retain evidence for long periods of times, which evidence often includes biological specimens, such as tissue, blood or other specimens for DNA testing. Industrial applications for such capabilities include the retention of standards for quality control and samples for batch tracking. There is a wide range of applications across virtually every scientific discipline that would benefit from the ability to store large quantities of small samples in arrays of vials.
There is a need for a tool that will allow the capping/de-capping of an array of sample storage vials while maintaining the original caps in the exact positions from which they were removed, and that will allow for numerous trays to be continually processed while maintaining tray identity that matches the caps. The present invention is directed to this need.